What has caused Salisbury to drop back-to-back games after beginning the season 9-0?

Last year the Salisbury girls basketball team was able to put together a rather successful season earning a spot in the Colonial League playoffs, reaching in the District 11 Class 2A finals and making it to the second round of the PIAA state playoffs.

With three of its top scorers — Meagan Eripret, Lindsay Bauer and Kelly Gonoude — returning from last year's team, the Falcons seemed poised to at least repeat, if not build on that run as this season opened.

And that's the way the first month of the season unfolded.

Salisbury breezed through its first nine games of its schedule, including two in a holiday tournament it hosted, and handed a previously unbeaten Palmerton team a 63-58 defeat Dec. 22.

The Falcons had their offense clicking, averaging just over 50 points a game, and limited opposing teams to an average 35.4 points per contest.

Then the calendar flipped to January and the Falcons have now opened the new year with back-to-back losses.

While those two losses did come against two of the better teams in the Colonial League — Notre Dame-Green Pond and Northwestern — it still sent a wake up call to the Falcons.

Some coaches might sugarcoat the sudden slump but not Salisbury coach Joe Mladosich.

"It's always a cause for concern when you lose two in a row," said Mladosich.

So what happened?

Salisbury stopped taking care of the ball.

In the first loss, the Crusaders defense pressured Salisbury and Mladosich admitted his team didn't handle it well turning over the ball. That problem was compounded when Salisbury lost its point guard, Bauer, during the game when she sustained an injury and ended up needing stitches.

Salisbury made its mistakes, although Mladosich also gave credit to a very good team in Notre Dame.

Instead of correcting those errors in their next game, with Bauer returning to the lineup, things only got worse for the Falcons.

They turned the ball over 31 times.

"31 times down the court and 31 times we didn't get a shot off," said Mladosich, who explained how the plethora of turnovers drastically limited his team's offensive opportunities.

It's often easy for things to snowball, especially when a team went through a decent stretch without much adversity, but Mladosich thinks the experience the team possesses will keep that from occurring.

In those two losses Eripret continued to carry the load offensively, but secondary scoring is something they lacked. In most games this year, the Falcons have had at least two players reach double figures and sometimes as many as four.

Eripret, who is the fourth-highest scorer in the area averaging 21.1 points per game, was the only Falcon to reach double digits in points against Notre Dame and Northwestern.

That's another place Mladosich would like his team to improve.

"We depend way too much on Meagan Eripret and Lindsay Bauer," said Mladosich. "We definitely need more balance on offense."

It's possible, however, the offensive balance will work itself out by cutting down on the turnovers, which will create more chances for everyone.

"That's our hope," said Mladosich. "We'll change things a little, nothing major. Other than that we are playing very well."

EPC surprises near the halfway point

Whitehall, Allen and East Stroudsburg North may not exactly be in the race for an Eastern Pennsylvania Conference wild card berth when the postseason picture begins to shape up later this month, but all three schools have showed much improvement over the seasons they posted last year.

The biggest surprise might be Allen (3-7, 2-5), which is still quite young returning just one senior from last year's team. The Canaries, who went winless in Lehigh Valley Conference play last season and won just one game overall, have already earned two EPC victories and topped Quakertown to begin the season in a non-league matchup.

Freshman point guard Kion Andrews is helping run an offense that features two girls averaging over 10 points a game — sophomores Mileisha Troche (13.8) and Taylor Styles (10.2) — and is chipping in 5.4 points per game herself.

After going 1-21 overall and 0-12 in the Mountain Valley Conference, coach Terrence Bomar went back to the basics with East Stroudsburg North (4-7, 2-5) to start this season stressing disciplined play while making the most of opportunities with layups and foul shots. That, along with a number of players returning from last year, has helped.

Whitehall hasn't improved on its win total from last year just yet, like both Allen and East Stroudsburg North have, but its 7-14 record overall, and 3-11 in the old Lehigh Valley Conference, was a little tougher to improve on.

The Zephyrs are close though. They are just one win away from matching last year's overall win total — they are currently .500 overall (6-6) — and one EPC win from topping last year's LVC total of three.

After reaching the 1,000 point plateau for her career, senior Alyssa Mack is in the process of checking things of her to-do list before she graduates.

One of the main things she's focused on right now, according to Central Catholic's coach Mike Kopp? A championship.

There will obviously be a number of hurdles left but it certainly looks like a possibility with the way Mack and Central Catholic are playing.

The toughest competition the team has faced to date — excluding Episcopal Charter which dealt the Vikettes its only loss so far — has been Nazareth, and Mack was the main reason they survived the 66-65 triple overtime thriller at Rockne Hall Saturday.

The senior scored a season-high 31 points in the victory and completely took over with the game on the line. Over half of her points — 17 to be exact — came after the fourth quarter buzzer.

She was clutch throughout the game, however, ending a 7-0 run by Nazareth's Tessa Brugler in the second quarter while hitting of total of six 3-pointers, three of which tied the game.

Even her 1,000th point, which came on a two-point field goal, was crucial, tying the game at 47-47 with just over two seconds left in the first overtime and creating a need for a second.

"She's so strong," said Central Catholic coach Mike Kopp. "She's really come a long way since her freshman year. This is her fourth year that she's started but she's a lot stronger now … [Her performance in Central's win over Nazareth] is a good way for the rest of the team to understand how we have to play against this type of competition."

Mack, headed to Bloomsburg, also tied for the team lead in points in two road wins this past week over Dieruff and East Stroudsburg South.

In Central's first 13 games, Mack is averaging 14.8 points per game, a number that would undoubtedly be much higher if not for 10 of the Vikettes 12 wins coming by double digits.